The Toughest Job Associated With The Corp

We use titles to define ourselves every day: wife, daughter, sister, employee, bartender, friend, etc…

The title that I use the most often and has the biggest impact on my life is Marine Corp Wife.

You can’t drive around a Marine Corp base for very long without seeing a car with a sticker stating “Marine Wife, toughest job in the Corp”. This sticker really bothers my husband, and I get why it does. We’re not IN the Corp. We didn’t go to boot camp, we don’t put on the cammies every day, and we don’t go into combat zones.

So in respect to him, I will change it to “Marine Wife, the toughest job associated with the Corp”.

I’m a woman of action, if there is a problem; I actively work to solve it. If stuck in a traffic jam, I would rather get off and take back streets to my destination rather than sit there waiting. Yeah, it probably increases the time it takes me to get there, but at least I’m feeling like I’m doing something.

Maybe that’s why sitting at home while my husband is in a combat zone is so hard for me. The waiting kills me. The fact that there is absolutely nothing I can do to make sure he comes home safe to me drives me crazy. I hate inaction. I hate feeling helpless.

But there isn’t anything I can do. I have to trust him and trust his training and I have to wait.

During that time, I hate the doorbell. I want to rip it out of its little hole beside the door and smash it with a hammer. Why would hate a simple little tool in life, you might ask? My friend Mikey’s husband is a CPA, when she hears the doorbell; she thinks it’s the UPS guy making a delivery of fun Stampin Up products! My friend Laurie’s husband is in construction. When she hears the doorbell, she thinks that it’s the neighborhood kids wanting her little girl to come out and play.

While Dave is deployed, every time I hear the doorbell, I freeze. My blood runs cold in my veins and the very first thought that races through my mind is “something’s happened”. I think, this is it, this is the time that I’m going to walk to the door and there will be two people in uniform standing there with grim faces telling me that my life has been changed forever. The walk from where I was standing to the front door may only be yards, but every single time my doorbell rings, it feels like an eternity until I look through that peephole and see a neighbor or the UPS guy, or whoever it is this time.

Think about that.

No seriously, stop and think about it. For seven months, every single waking moment of the day you wonder if the person you love more than anyone, your best friend and soul-mate, you wonder if he is safe and coming home to you.

I did this twice in 2003 and 2004. He was gone for seven months, home for six, and then gone for another seven. I joked to him that I needed a year off.

I should have been careful what I wished for.

In four or five weeks, he’s leaving again. I will have to stand in a cold parking lot, shivering, smelling the fumes from two or three big buses, and watch him leave again. I have to do this with my head up, shoulders back, and a smile on my face. I do this because that is my job.

He is going to have so much on his mind over there; keeping himself safe, watching over his young Marines, completing his mission; I want him to focus on the things that are important. My job is to stay here and keep the home fires burning. My job is to make sure he doesn’t have to worry about anything here. My job is to make sure that the last time he looks at my face before he leaves, he sees a smile and a strong confident woman that he doesn’t have to worry about.

That’s my job and it sucks!

What A Difference A Year Makes

What a difference a year makes…

This time last year I was the General Manager of a mid-sized family hotel in Palm Springs, California. I was running a 2 million dollar a year business with 25 employees, reporting directly to the partners who owned it.

I worked 50 to 60 hours a week. I got calls at all hours of the day and night with emergency questions and situations. The stress to meet budget and make my revenue goals was intense; if I wasn’t at the hotel working, I was thinking about the hotel.

I was making some serious money, too. A very nice salary, an apartment on property, a monthly car allowance (can we say non-taxable revenue), and cheap hotel rooms whenever I traveled.

I was miserable.

I never saw my husband and even when we were together I was getting phone calls all the time. The stress to make budgeted revenue in a local economy that was seeing a downward trend in its tourism industry was causing me to stress eat and I was gaining weight like crazy.

My husband had just returned from his second Iraq deployment and there was this big something between us. In trying to split myself between my career and my family, I was doing a really lousy job at both of them.

Fast forward to today…

I work in a small family run hotel in a small desert town. I go in every morning and do their morning paperwork, and then I go over to the bar in the restaurant and sling drinks until 4pm. I work 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week. If I work more than 8 hours in a day, I get paid over-time. Every now and then I get a phone call asking me a computer question if the night bartender can’t reach one of the owners, but it’s pretty rare. I actually enjoy my job. I look forward to going to work. I like my co-workers and I really like my bosses.

I’ve never been happier.

If my old friends in Palm Springs could see me now, they would probably laugh at “how far I have fallen”. I’ve had some of the other officer’s wives from the unit where my husband works come into the bar and snub me. God forbid that they would admit to their other snotty friends that they know someone in the service industry. :::shudder::: But I just laugh about it. (okay so the first time it happened I got mad, but now I just laugh)

I make about one fourth of what I used to make, and I do miss my disposable income. I get $15 dollar haircuts, my nails and toes get done at home more often than not, I have given up my weekly massage appointment, and my scrapbook supplies budget is no longer unlimited. Yes, I miss my disposable income; I just don’t miss what came with it.

I have suits in the back of my closet gathering dust as I wear jeans to work. I dyed my hair pink last year, just because I could. I went home to Texas for Christmas this year for the first time in 11 years. My marriage has never been stronger, even as he prepares for yet another 7 month Iraq deployment, I have never been happier in my relationship with him. Hell, even my cat is happier having me at home more often!

The simple life is good. You can have the rat race, I’m perfectly happy at the nice slow pace.

Want a Bloody Mary? I've discovered that I make a great one!

I Resolve

I like making New Year's Resolutions. It's a fresh start every year. It's like a do over!

Only for me, New Year's Resolutions don't start until January 5th. What's the use of a resolution, which includes healthy eating and weight loss religiously every year, when you are just going to blow it on the biggest most important day of the year!

MY BIRTHDAY! January 4th!

But I digress.......

This year I have set my yearly "get back into shape" goal, but with a twist. I've given myself a target weight to reach instead of my usual vague "lose weight". I want to hit 160 before Dave comes home from Iraq some time in October. I'm calling myself accountable here!

I also resolve to be more religious with my facial care. I have gorgeous skin; I should baby it more to keep it nice as long as possible.

And my oral health is always an issue with me. My dentist tells me that I have a high calcium content in my saliva, so I'm supposed to get my teeth cleaned more often than most people. But couple that with an irrational fear of dental people, and it makes for a pretty bad thing. This week I'm seeing a periodontist (much deep breathing and crying is involved, luckily I have a very understanding periodontist) to do a deep root scaling. So I'm bound and determined not to let it get this bad again!!

I also have resolved to scrap 2 pages a week, for a total of 104 in the year. With Dave deployed this year; I should have plenty of time on my hands to get that done. I need to catch up on my Book of Me, finish my Disney album from my trip in 2004, do my usual 12x12 yearly album, and I'll also make a small 6x6 album for Dave entitled "While You Were Out" chronicling my time and thoughts while he was deployed.

As a photographer, I take lots of pictures, most of which are stored on my laptops hard drive. So what would happen if this laptop crashed? I would lose years of precious memories. So this year I have resolved to burn CD's of all my photographs and to back up to Snapfish as well.

Last but not least, I resolved to start this blog and to keep it up. Why? Probably because I'm an egomaniac and think that the whole world is interested in what I have to say and what I think.

Hey, I'm the center of the universe, right?








ps.....also thanks and credit to the nameless scrapper at veggieville who's layout I scraplifted. Way to go girl! Hey, imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?

Yes, I Am A Snob

Recently, my own mother said to me “Wendy, you are a snob.” She didn’t mean it in a bad way, she just believes in calling things as they are.

I prefer the term, discriminating, myself.

But do I think I am better than some people? Yes, I do.

I truly believe that all men are created equal. I just don’t think they stay that way.

But think about it, really, why would I be the way I am if I didn’t think it was better?

If I didn’t think that being a productive member of society was better than sucking up society’s resources, I would sit at home, collecting welfare, and pop out babies. Am I a better person than someone who falsely collects disability when they have the capability to work simply because they are lazy? Yes, I am.

If I didn’t think that using proper grammar and being well spoken was better than not, I could drop my good diction. If I didn’t think that being clean and well groomed was better than being dirty and offending others around me, I could stop taking a shower and washing my hair. That would sure save on my water bills. Do I think that I am a better person that the barefoot, stinking woman that has no grasp of the proper use of the English language that I see in line in front of me at Wal-Mart? Yes, I do.

If I didn’t think that being honest and moral was better than stealing, I could stop working so hard for a living and just take what I want. Why bother wasting my money buying things, I could shoplift! I could steal from my company; I could raid the pension funds of my employees and leave them penniless in their golden years. So what if I hurt other people, right? Am I better than someone who takes with no regard to other’s rights? You bet I am!

The funny thing is, I think if I asked 100 people “Here is a child molester, he takes the innocence of babies and has ruined the lives of dozens of kids. Do you think you are a better person than he is?” most would answer yes. What about a murder? Someone who doesn’t pay their taxes? A person that cheats on their spouse? It’s only when the line becomes not so clear-cut, that the bad people become not so bad, that people hesitate.

But by saying that they are a better person than the child molester, they have established that some people are better than others. Why the squeamishness over the semantics?

Are there people that are better than me? Absolutely! My husband is a prime example; he’s spent the last 17 years as a United States Marine defending his country. He’s about to leave for his third tour in Iraq, his fourth if you count Desert Storm in 1991. He’s taking this tour because a friend was slated to go, but it would have caused a hardship in his family. Dave is taking his place so his friend can take care of his sick wife.

Dave is well spoken, unfailing nice to people in the service industry, worries about taking financial care of his parents and mine in their golden years, is patient with children, truly listens when other people speak, takes care of his physical health, tries to better himself every year, and follows the rules no matter how inconvenient they are to him. I strive to be more like him.

So yes, I am a snob. I do think I am better than a lot of people in our world today. But I also know that there are people who are better than me, and I use them as examples to grow and improve myself.